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Illuminating - The meaning of life

By Pete de Mamiel

How are you showing up in the world, story? "Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather
billfold and brought out a very small round ........, about the size of a
quarter. And what he said went like this:"

Shining Light in Dark Corners

“Are There Any Questions?” An offer that comes at the end of lectures
and long meetings. Said when an audience is not only overdosed with
information, but when there is no time left anyhow. At times like that
you sure do have questions. Like “Can we leave now?” and “What the hell
was this meeting for?” and “Where can I get a drink?”

The gesture is supposed to indicate openness on the part of the
speaker, I suppose, but if in fact you do ask a question, both the
speaker and audience will give you drop-dead looks. And some fool — some
earnest idiot — always asks. And the speaker always answers. By
repeating most of what he has already said.

But if there is a little time left and there is a little silence in
response to the invitation, I usually ask the most important question of
all: “What is the meaning of life?”

You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I’d really hate to
miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask. But when I ask,
it’s usually taken as a kind of absurdest move — people laugh and nod
and gather up their stuff and the meeting is dismissed on that
ridiculous note.

Once, and only once, I asked that question and got a serious answer. One that is with me still.

First, I must tell you where this happened, because the place has a
power of its own. In Greece. Near the village of Gonia on a rocky bay
of the island of Crete, sits a Greek Orthodox monastery. Alongside it,
on land donated by the monastery, is an institute dedicated to human
understanding and peace, and especially to rapprochement between Germans
and Cretans. An improbable task, given the bitter residue of wartime.

This site is important, because it overlooks the small airstrip at
Maleme where Nazi paratroopers invaded Crete and were attacked by
peasants wielding kitchen knives and hay scythes. The retribution was
terrible. The populations of whole villages were lined up and shot for
assaulting Hitler’s finest troops. High above the institute is a
cemetery with a single cross marking the mass grave of Cretan partisans.
And across the bay on yet another hill is the regimented burial ground
of the Nazi paratroopers. The memorials are so placed that all might see
and never forget. Hate was the only weapon the Cretans had at the end,
and it was a weapon many vowed never to give up. Never ever.

Against this heavy curtain of history, in this place where the stone
of hatred is hard and thick, the existence of an institute devoted to
healing the wounds of war is a fragile paradox. How has it come to be
here? The answer is a man. Alexander Papaderos.

A doctor of philosophy, teacher, politician, resident of Athens but a
son of this soil. At war’s end he came to believe that the Germans and
the Cretans had much to give one another — much to learn from one
another. That they had an example to set. For if they could forgive
each other and construct a creative relationship, then any people could.

To make a lovely story short, Papaderos succeeded. The institute
became a reality — a conference ground on the site of horror — and it
was in fact a source of productive interaction between the two
countries. Books have been written on the dreams that were realized by
what people gave to people in this place.

By the time I came to the institute for a summer session, Alexander
Papaderos had become a living legend. One look at him and you saw his
strength and intensity — energy, physical power, courage, intelligence,
passion, and vivacity radiated from this person. And to speak to him, to
shake his hand, to be in a room with him when he spoke, was to
experience his extraordinary electric humanity. Few men live up to their
reputations when you get close. Alexander Papaderos was an exception.

At the last session on the last morning of a two-week seminar on
Greek culture, led by intellectuals and experts in their fields who were
recruited by Papaderos from across Greece, Papaderos rose from his
chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in
the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out. We followed
his gaze across the bay to the iron cross marking the German cemetery.

He turned. And made the ritual gesture: “Are there any questions?”

Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence.

“No questions?” Papaderos swept the room with his eyes.

So. I asked.

“Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?”

The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.

Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a
long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my
eyes that I was.

“I will answer your question.”

Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather
billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a
quarter. And what he said went like this:

“When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we
lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken
pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.

“I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not
possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by
scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a
toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into
dark places where the sun would never shine — in deep holes and crevices
and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most
inaccessible places I could find.”

“I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would
take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I
became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s
game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to
understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light —
truth, understanding, knowledge — is there, and it will only shine in
many dark places if I reflect it.”

“I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not
know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark
places of this world — into the black places in the hearts of men — and
change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do
likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.”

And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught
the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected
them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.

Much of what I experienced in the way of information about Greek
culture and history that summer is gone from memory. But in the wallet
of my mind I carry a small round mirror still.